Panther Eye Part 10

"What does a fellow get out of that, anyway?" he grumbled. "What does this fellow 'M' expect? The first one reached us after we'd been operating two months, the second a month later, and the third a month after that. What does he think this land is like? Three thousand miles! But then, I suppose the rotten Russians did it. Made threats, likely."

"Doesn't give any address," commented the doctor.

"Not a scratch. We'd better go to the Red Cross headquarters, wherever that is. Let's hunt it up."

Again they took up their heavy, even tread and came out from the narrow street onto a broader one, which appeared to lead to the business section of the city.

As Johnny sniffed the pungent odor of spring in the twilight air, he was forcibly reminded of the time consumed in that journey from the mines to Vladivostok. He regretted the many delays. When they occurred, he had fairly fumed at them. He realized now that "M," whoever that might be, the agent sent from Chicago to superintend the distribution of supplies for the refugee orphans, might have been compelled to leave Russia before this. That the Russians, disturbed by a thousand suspicions and fears, would not tolerate a stranger who had no apparent purpose for being in their land, he knew all too well. The agent could state the purpose of his presence in the beginning and get away with it, but when months had elapsed and nothing had been done, what dark suspicions might be directed against him?

Johnny heaved a sigh of resignation. Nothing that had happened could have been avoided. Time and again ice-floes clogging the waters of those northern seas had threatened to crush their craft, and only by long detours and many hours of tireless pulling away from the giant cakes had they found a pa.s.sage. The journey could have been made by reindeer in the same length of time. As he thought of that, his heart skipped a beat. What if the little yellow men who had come so near making away with that two hundredweight of gold had succeeded in securing reindeer, and had made their way to Vladivostok? What would they not risk to regain possession of the gold that had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from them?

As he thought of this, he picked his steps more cautiously along the slippery streets. He cast a glance to the right and left of him. Then he started and plucked at his companion's sleeve.

"Hist!" he whispered. "Watch the alley to the right!"

When Pant so abruptly deserted Johnny Thompson's service, leaving only a vaguely worded note to tell of his going, he had, indeed, a plan and a purpose. So daring was this purpose that had he taken time to think it through to its end, he might never have attempted it. But Pant thought only of beginnings of enterprises, leaving the conclusions to work themselves out as best they might, effectively aided by his own audacity.

His purpose can best be stated by telling what he did.

When he left the schooner that night and crossed over the shadowy sh.o.r.e ice, a blizzard was rising. Already the snow-fog it raised had turned the moon into a misty ball. Through it the gleaming camp fires of the Bolshevik band told they had camped for the night not five miles from the mines.

The blizzard suited Pant's purposes well. It might keep the Russians in camp for many hours, and would most certainly make an effective job of a little piece of work which he wished to have done.

With a watchful eye he skirted the cabin they had left but a brief time before. A pale yellow light shone from one of the windows. Either the place was being looted by natives, or the yellow men had taken refuge there. The presence of a half-score of dogs scouting about the outside led him to believe that it was the natives. Where, then, were the Orientals?

Breathing a hope that they might not be found in the mines or the machine sheds, he hurried on. With a hand tight gripped on his automatic, he made his way into Mine No. 1. All was dark, damp and silent. The very ghost of his dead comrade seemed to lurk there still. Who was it that had killed Frank Langlois, and how had it been done? Concerning these questions, he now had a very definite solution, but it would be long before he knew the whole truth.

Once inside the mine, he hastened to the square entrance that had been cut there by the strange buzz-saw-like machine of the Orientals. The wall was thin at this place. With a pick he widened the gap until the machine could be crowded through, and with great difficulty he dragged it to the entrance of the mine. Once here his task was easier, for the machine was on runners and slid readily over the hard-crusted snow. With a look this way, then that, he plunged into the rising storm. Pus.h.i.+ng the machine before him, he presently reached the mouth of Mine No. 3 in which three days of steam-thawing had brought the miners to a low-grade pay dirt. The cavity was cut forty feet into the side of the bank which lay over the old bed of the river.

Having dragged the machine into the farthest corner, he returned to the entrance and at once dodged into the machine sheds. To these sheds he made five trips. On a small dog-sled he brought first a little gasoline engine and electric generator, next eight square batteries, then some supplies of food, a tank of gasoline, and some skin garments from the storeroom. His last journey found the first gray streaks of dawn breaking through the storm. He must hasten.

With a long knife he began cutting square cakes of snow and fitting them into the entrance of the mine. Soon, save for a narrow gap well hidden beneath a ledge of rock, the s.p.a.ce was effectively blocked.

He stretched himself, then yawned sleepily.

"It's a poor game that two can't play at," he muttered. "Now, if I can get this machinery singin', we'll see what Mine No. 3 has saved up for us.

Unless I miss my guess, from the way the rock lays, she'll be a rich one."

With that he crept into his sleeping-bag and was soon lost in the land of dreams.

Pant's first act, after awaking some six hours later, was to connect four of his batteries in series, then to connect the ends of two wires to the poles of the series. The wires were attached at the other end to a socket for an electric light.

When the connections were completed he screwed in a small bulb. The filament in the lamp glowed red, but gave no light.

Two batteries were added to the series, then two more. At this, the light shone brightly, dispelling the gloom of the place and driving the shadows into the deepest recesses.

With a smile on his lips, the boy twisted a wire into a coil, connected it to the battery circuit, watched it redden, then set his coffee-pot over it.

He was soon enjoying a cup of hot coffee and pilot bread.

"Not so bad! Not even half bad!" he muttered good-naturedly to himself.

"Electricity is great stuff. Now for the mining stunt!"

He listened for a moment to the howl of the blizzard outside, then began busying himself with the machinery at hand. Connecting the batteries to the gasoline generator to give it a "kick-off," he heard the pop of the engine with evident satisfaction. He next connected all his batteries in series and, having connected the engine, ran wires from it to the motor in the strange, mining buzz-saw. There followed a moment of suspense, then a grunt of disgust.

"Not enough voltage. Gotta get more batteries to-night. Dangerous, too.

Storm's going down. Bolsheviki coming in. Natives prowling an' yellow men, don't know about. Gotta do it though."

At that he sat down on his sleeping-bag, and, with arms outstretched, like Jack London's man of the wild, he slept the uneasy sleep of one who hunts and is hunted.

Night came at last and, with it, wakefulness and action. Cutting a hole through the snow-wall, which under the drive of the storm had grown to a surprising thickness, he crept out and slid down the hard bank, leaving no tracks behind.

The storm had abated; the moon and stars were out. As he dodged into the store sheds, he fancied that he saw a shadow flit from sight at the other end.

Working rapidly, he unearthed four fresh batteries. They were heavy affairs. A sled improvised from a plank and a bit of wire would aid him in bringing them up the hill. He had just arranged this contrivance and was about to turn toward the door, when a sudden darkening of the patch of moonlight admitted by the open door caused him to leap behind the ma.s.sive shape of a smelter. He peered around the edge of it, his breath coming rapidly.

Through his mind sped the question: "Bolsheviki, natives, or yellow men?"

Upon freeing itself from the frozen claybank, the sausage balloon, with Dave Tower, Jarvis and the unconscious stranger on board, rose rapidly.

In their wild consternation, Dave and Jarvis did not realize this until the intense cold of the upper air began to creep through the heavily-padded walls of the cabin.

At this, Jarvis dropped on his stomach and stared down through the plate-gla.s.s on the floor.

"s.h.i.+ver my bones!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "we're a mile 'igh and goin' 'igher!"

At this word Dave dashed for the door. He had it half open. A blast of air so cold that it seemed solid ice rushed its way through the opening.

Immediately Jarvis threw himself against the door.

"What'll y' do?" he stormed. "I 'ates to think 'ow stiff you'd freeze h'out there in the 'alf of a second."

Dave shook with the cold and the excitement. The stranger in the corner groaned.

Jarvis sprang to the gasoline motor.

"If we can get 'er started we'll 'ave some 'eat."

After five minutes of fumbling about with stiffening fingers, he straightened up with a sigh.

"Can't make 'ead nor tail of 'er. These bloomin' 'eathen; they make such queer riggin's."

Dave did not answer. He had discovered a series of sealed wet batteries lined against the wall and, having dragged one of these loose from its wiring, prepared to test it out with a piece of insulated wire.

In a second there came a blinding flash.